Embodiments of the invention relate generally to media systems and methods, and more particularly, to media systems and methods for displaying media content and media guidance information received by portable electronic devices.
The amount and variety of media content available to users has increased dramatically in recent years. In addition to hundreds of conventional broadcast television channels, users may now access a nearly limitless amount of video, audio, and other content. Moreover, with one advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speed wireless networks, users are accessing media content on devices on which they traditionally did not, such as mobile phones, personal computers, hand-held computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), or other portable electronic devices. For example, it is now common to equip mobile phones with digital receivers for receiving and displaying television programs and other media content broadcast by terrestrial broadcasting services.
Interactive media guidance applications have been developed to assist users in navigating through the wide array of media content accessible by televisions, mobile phones, and other equipment. An interactive media guidance application may also perform media guidance application functions on content accessible by a user's equipment. These media guidance application functions may include searching for desired content, scheduling a selected content to be recorded, recording the selected content to a local storage device or remote media server, adding the selected content to a favorite programs list, setting a reminder for the selected content, ordering the selected contest via an on-demand (e.g., video on-demand or VOD) or pay-per-view (PPV) service, or any other suitable function.
Although interactive media guidance applications are relatively easy to use with televisions and computer monitors, they are less so with mobile phones and other portable electronic devices because the display screens on such devices are typically too small to display much of the media guidance data provided by the guidance applications.
Similarly, while many users enjoy the portability and convenience of watching media content via their mobile phones and other portable electronic devices, they sometimes have difficulty viewing some types of media content because of the small display screens.